Like other major retailers that carry apparel, weak sales in the category weighed on quarterly results. Penney’s total sales fell 1.4% to $2.86 billion in the three months to Oct. 29, while sales at stores open at least a year dipped 0.8%, compared with 6.4% growth a year earlier.

As a result, the company lowered its sales forecast for its fiscal year.

Selling appliances is part of a plan by Penney to make itself less dependent on weather-related categories such as apparel and less vulnerable to online retailers such as
Amazon.com Inc.,
since large appliances aren’t typical online purchases.

Although the addition of appliance departments in 500 stores eventually helped sales, initially the rollout “created disruption that negatively impacted sales,” as management and employees focused on getting those areas up and running in time for the Columbus Day weekend sale in early October, said Penney Chief Executive
Marvin Ellison.

Apparel was hurt by warm weather, including what Mr. Ellison said was the “warmest September ever on record,” and by styles that were too career-focused and not casual enough. But the CEO told analysts on a conference call that several other categories performed strongly, including Sephora, home, fine jewelry and beauty salons.

Penney’s shares, which rose 5.4% Thursday following encouraging comments from other department stores about the coming holiday season, climbed 4% to $9.16 in Friday trading.

On Thursday,
Macy’s Inc.
and
Kohl’s Corp.
both reported sales declines in their latest periods, but gave upbeat outlooks for the holiday season.

The setback in the quarter for Penney was especially disappointing since it had been on an upswing following a disastrous overhaul by previous management that dented sales. The retailer said sales improved in October once the appliance departments were settled, with sales of washing machines, refrigerators and dishwashers adding about 0.2% to sales growth in the month.

On the apparel side, Mr. Ellison said Penney is introducing more active wear and other casual garments to help boost sales during the holiday period. He added that he is expecting a good holiday season, in part because the company has less inventory so it won’t need to mark down vast swaths of goods as it did last year.

In its fiscal third quarter, Penney posted a loss of $67 million, compared with a loss of $115 million the prior year. Gross margin fell slightly to 37.2% from 37.3%, partly because of higher shipping costs for online orders.

Penney now expects comparable-store sales to grow 1% to 2% for the year; it had previously projected growth of 3% to 4%.